A potential solution to the issue of fatal accidents

Driver education is an incredibly important part of reducing motor accidents and keeping people safe on the road. Because Human error is inevitable, accidents will always happen. I believe that by properly educating drivers on how to avoid dangerous situations, as well as how to handle them when they happen. We can both reduce the number of accidents that occur and the percentage of accidents that result in fatality or serious injury.

My definition of “Driver education” is this: Teaching drivers how to anticipate dangerous situations as well as how to properly react to such situations regardless of adverse driving conditions or the mistakes of others on the road. As it stands our driver education system focuses on teaching students the basics of road safety laws, traffic regulations, and how to drive. My ideal form of initial driver education is closer to defensive driving. Defensive driving courses are only mandated for people who have already had some type of accident. I believe that making competent defensive driving the base requirement for a license would significantly reduce the number of fatal crashes that occur.

I have been behind the wheel of a car during a minor accident and it is only the education that I received about safe driving practices that enabled me to minimize the damage caused. The accident in question involved a lot of rain and slick tires. My car began to skid and there was a point where I almost lost control of the vehicle. A lot of fatal crashes start like this. Situations which in the moment are terrifying but could have been avoided with proper training in how to handle dangerous situations.

“Accidents” are just that, accidental situations that arise from either a lack of diligence, control, or other elements of human error. We can’t do anything to prevent accidents entirely, even if we replaced human drivers with machines there would still be incidents. So rather than trying to eliminate the human element, I believe we should do all we can to minimize the damage. By giving proper instruction to new drivers on how to be safe.

Things like what to do when you lose traction. Safe Braking distance. How to most safely watch the road, Change lanes, drive at night, etc. When I was first learning how to drive, these topics were touched on mostly in passing. It was less my experience in the classroom, but my desire to educate myself on safe driving habits, that enabled me to safely turn what could have been a serious danger to a minor accident when I nearly lost control of my car in the rain. Driver’s Ed was a pass/fail class. While I do not necessarily think that we should significantly increase the difficulty for obtaining a driver’s license. I do think that we should increase the standard of our driver education as it pertains to handling dangerous situations on the road.

It is also important to address the quality of the hands-on instruction new drivers receive. When I was in drivers ed in highschool, we spent most of our time studying regulations and techniques instead of driving. The majority of our driving time was out of class on our own time. I think that it could be beneficial to alter the requirements of the in class driving instruction. Making sure that the time new drivers spend with an instructor covers the driving skills and situations that would involve skills that can’t be easily acquired just by driving, as well as putting what is learned in class to practical use with professional instruction.

What I personally can do to be a better driver is practice being more alert and less distracted. While on the road it is very easy to get distracted by any number of things. It can take the form of focusing too much

Using the example of my minor accident from 2018. The primary cause of that accident was not the rain or my car’s slick tires, but the fact that I started braking too late when I noticed I was close to the car ahead of me. This could have been prevented by being more aware of the road around me. This is something that I have gotten better at as the years have passed and I have driven more with the intent to practice awareness. I am proud to say that I have had zero accidents since that day in 2018.